Janice Day, the Young Homemaker Part 7

finished Broxton Day, "that cab could have come from, and returned to, any one of a dozen places within a few miles of Greensboro."

"But how do you know she was not driven right to the railroad station, as long as you are sure she did not go to Pickletown?"

"I found out," said Mr. Day, quietly, that there isn't a Swede in town who drives a taxi. And you say the driver was a Swede, and that it was a regular taxicab."

"Oh, yes, Daddy. He was one of her own kind of folks. I heard them talking together when he went up for her trunk. I wish I had taken the number of that cab!" cried Janice woefully.

"Never mind. Don't blame yourself too harshly, girly."

"But I do blame myself, Daddy," she cried, wiping her eyes.

"Those dear pictures and the diary! And most of all mother's miniature! Why, Daddy Day! I'd give a million dollars rather than have lost the treasure-box."

"No use crying over the spilled milk," he said, reflectively.

"It does seem to me as though Olga was not just the sort of person who would steal--I say! You told me she telephoned for the taxi?'

"Yes. At least, she telephoned and talked to somebody over the 'phone in Swedish."

"You don't say!" repeated Mr. Day thoughtfully using a Yankeeism that betrayed his birthplace if nothing else did, although he had long since come from New England to the Middle West. "Then in all probability she telephoned to a friend, and the friend sent the taxicab. I wonder if that Willie Sangreen is in this?

"I tell you!" he exclaimed finally. "In the morning I will go and see the superintendent of our telephone exchange personally.

Perhaps, when I explain the case, he will tell me the number Olga called up."

"Oh, Daddy! can you do that?"

"There is a record made of every call," he told her. "Now don't worry more than you can help, Janice. We'll do something about it. Never fear."

His encouraging "do something" was bound to cheer his little daughter. She hurried away to see if dinner was not ready, and caught Delia frankly listening at the door.

"Why, Delia, why didn't you knock or speak?" Janice asked.

But Delia was absolutely unruffled. She drawled:

"I didn't know but you wanted to talk to your Paw some more, and the dinner could wait."

When, a little later, they were seated at table and Delia appeared with the first hot dishes, it must be confessed that her appearance somewhat startled Mr. Broxton Day.

Their anxiety about the lost treasure-box had precluded his having asked any questions regarding the new houseworker; her appearance was as startling as though she had come straight from a sideshow.

Janice put her napkin to her lips to hide their trembling. But her eyes danced. Daddy's amazement was quickly smothered. He was silent, however, until Delia was out of the room again.

"What do you think of her, Daddy?" giggled the little girl.

"I certainly did not see her before hiring her. In fact, I did my business over the phone with the manager of the intelligence office. I gathered from him that

she was a woman of middle age, and "settled," whatever that may mean. If it means that she can work and stay settled here-- But what a queer looking creature! How does she seem to take hold, Janice? Does she seem intelligent?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet," murmured his little daughter.

"She doesn't look as though she knew anything at all. But maybe she does. You said yourself that we couldn't have anybody worse than Olga."

"I don't know about that," he retorted. "I may have to take that back. s.h.!.+ Here she comes again."

Aside from the fact that she served cold plates for the roast and vegetables, and hot ones for the salad; that from her great height she was almost certain to spill food on the table before she got a dish set down before them; and that she kept bouncing in and out of the dining room to ask them if they were ready for dessert; she managed to get through the meal without making Mr.

Day and Janice any great discomfort.

In the living room, later, when Mr. Day was in his comfortable chair and Janice had her school books spread out upon the table under the reading lamp, the father said softly:

"Well, my dear, it is not the sort of life I hoped we would lead when we built this house. Your dear mother was such a wonderful housekeeper, and could manage so well. I never had a thought or a care about the housekeeping affairs. But now--"

"I know, Daddy," broke in Janice earnestly. "If only I didn't have to go to school!"

"That is something that cannot even be discussed," he rejoined, smiling at her gravely. "As I told you last night, my dear, what your mother and I planned regarding your education must be carried through if possible."

"But college is a long way ahead," said Janice wistfully. "And meanwhile you are not comfortable and the house is going to rack and ruin, just as Miss Peckham says."

"Did the old girl say that?" he wanted to know, with rather a rueful smile on his lips.

"Yes. She was in here the other day and she is so nosey. She was bound to go all through house, although I did not want her to. I know it doesn't look spick and span as it should--"

"That is not your fault, Janice," her father said quickly.

"Don't let it worry you. You must stick to your books. And if we can get n.o.body better than this woman--or Olga--to help, we must expect things to be in rather bad shape about the house.

"I suppose there are good housekeepers for hire--somewhere.

They certainly do not seem to be in Greensboro. And, then, I cannot afford to pay a very high wage. You see, my dear, we are not rich."

"No, Daddy," Janice agreed. "I quite know that. But we have enough, and to spare, I am sure."

"So far we have managed to pull along," he said smiling at her quizzically. "And perhaps we shall be even better off in time.

I am up to my neck, as the boys say, in an investment in Mexican mines. I was able to get into it before your dear mother died, and she quite approved. Several Greensboro men have invested in the same string of mines and there is ore being got out--ore of good quality.

"But thus far there have been no dividends. Rather, we have had to put in more money for improvements. But when once we get started producing, you and I may have something like riches."

"Oh, won't that be nice, Daddy!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed and red-cheeked in her excitement. "To be really rich!"

"Well, we shall be able to engage somebody better fitted perhaps for the position of housekeeper," sighed Mr. Day, turning to his newspaper again.

"That's all right, Daddy," she said. "But meanwhile I am going to do all I can to make things go smoother. Just as you said last night, it can only be brought about by somebody's doing something. I'll do something, you see if I don't."

She made this declaration cheerfully. But when she closed her books, kissed daddy, and went up to bed, her countenance was overcast with an expression far from cheerful.

Only the evening before she had sat here and looked her treasures over. The diary which mother had kept when she was a little girl--all the innocent little secrets she had written on the pages which Janice so delighted to read!

And the lovely miniature, with mother in the very dress she wore the evening she and Broxton Day were betrothed. Janice knew all about that. Her mother had talked freely of her courts.h.i.+p and of what a splendid young man daddy had appeared to be in her eyes.

Her mother's frequently expressed admiration for the young man who came from New England to win his fortune in the Middle West was doubtless the foundation of Janice Day's unusual fondness for her father.

That by her carelessness she should have brought about the loss of the treasure-box and those things which both she and daddy considered of such personal value, was the thought that weighed most heavily on the girl's heart.

Without turning on her light, she went to the window and looked out into the soft spring darkness! Daddy's letters! Mother's miniature! The treasured old diary that Janice so loved!